Help me play songs for children

September 5, 2006 2:04 PM

Help me to find guitar tabs/chords for childrens songs.

I've just got a job as a teacher, and kind of mentioned that I can play the guitar, I can....just. So I want to expand my repertoire from no songs, to many song, that will keep 6 year olds happy for hours(minutes will do to start with)

I'm not an expert on finding tabs/chords on the internet, and there seems to be loads of sites out there, but not many that I've found with children specific songs.

Also any song books that people would recommend me to use for this age range would be handy as well.

Thanks in advance.

posted by djstig to education (7 comments total)

Yellow Submarine, Hello Goodbye, and Puff the Magic dragon can all be found on alt.guitar.tab. With 'the man' going after tab sites, I think that NewsGroups will come to the forefront (again) as the place to go to find tabs. Pretty much any popular song before 1995ish can be found on alt.guitar.tab. Good luck!
posted by maxpower at 2:14 PM on September 5, 2006

the songbook titled 'rise up singing' is a great, great resource. tons of songs, simple presentation.
posted by gnutron at 2:22 PM on September 5, 2006

I would focus on songs that the kids might not know but that you can teach them, otherwise you're going to have to try to learn the theme to spongebob, etc. and it's going to be a drag.

i.e. follow the example of (dan zanes?) and the album Rocket Ship Beach and just do cool covers. Or learn songs that you like and teach them to the kids.

That said, Hal Leonard has something called the "budget book" line of songbooks, and they have a kids song collection. It's like 10 bucks.

Amazon link
posted by mecran01 at 2:22 PM on September 5, 2006

Upon rereading, Amazon.com: Rise Up Singing: The Group Singing Songbook (15th Anniversary Edition): Books: Pete Seeger,Peter Blood,Annie Patterson,Kore Loy McWhirter

Looks *much* better than my lame answer.
posted by mecran01 at 3:58 PM on September 5, 2006

Order the official songbook from the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. I promise, PROMISE you, that you will not be disappointed. This thing rocks the house for kids songs and adult songs that kids like. I'm trying to figure out if they have one just from their Wiggleworms program, which would be awesome.

Oh, and while you are at it, check out their indie label CD, "The Bottle Let Me Down"...songs for kids but adults dig it too.
posted by jeanmari at 5:33 PM on September 5, 2006

Rise up Singing is an excellent resouce and was what i was going to suggest but mecran01 got there first
posted by edgeways at 5:40 PM on September 5, 2006

Also look for "fakebooks" that make it easy to play and sing along with popular songs.
posted by radioamy at 10:37 PM on September 5, 2006